Turning Points in God’s Work

This week in history, October 11-17:

• True Father is released from Heungnam Labor Camp (October 14, 1950)
• The 6,000-Couple Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony is held (October 14, 1982)
• National Parents’ Day is signed into law (October 14, 1994)
• The Cosmic Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony is held (October 14, 2009)
• True Father is indicted in America (October 15, 1981)
• True Parents visit the Marshall Islands (October 15, 2000)
• The Million Family March is held (October 16, 2000)
• The Rally for the Harmony and Unity of Heaven and Earth is held (October 16, 2002)

October 14, 1950

True Father Released from Heungnam Labor Camp

The work and storage room at the Heungnam Labor Camp.

True Father’s ministry in Pyongyang ended on February 22, 1948, when he was arrested for a second time by North Korean officials. He was tried on April 7 and sentenced to five years of hard labor. On May 20, True Father was transferred from prison in Pyongyang to a labor camp in Heungnam, an industrial city on the east coast of North Korea. There he endured a hellish existence until liberated by advancing UN forces on October 14, 1950.

Men working at the Heungnam Labor Camp.

True Father’s liberation by UN forces was by no means assured. As bombing of the Heungnam industrial complex became more intense, guards began executing prisoners, calling out their numbers starting with those having the longest sentences. In his autobiography, True Father notes, “The night before my scheduled execution the bombs fell like rain in the monsoon season … so intense that it seemed all of Heungnam had been turned into a sea of fire. The high walls around the prison began to fall and the guards ran for their lives. Finally, the gate of the prison that had kept us in that place opened. At around two o’clock in the morning of the next day, I walked calmly out of Heungnam Prison with dignity.”

October 14, 1982

6,000-Couple Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony

True Parents sprinkle holy water over the couples at the 6000-couple Holy Marriage Blessing.

True Parents blessed 6,000 couples in Chamshil Gymnasium in Seoul on October 14, 1982. The precise number of couples blessed was 5,837, as True Father noted in his Blessing prayer. The 6,000-Couple Blessing is linked with the 2,075-Couple Blessing conducted by True Parents on July 1, 1982, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. They are referred to jointly as the 8,000-Couple Holy Blessing. Both included significant numbers of international couples. The 6,000-Couple Holy Blessing, convened on 20 days’ notice, included participants from 84 nations. True Father noted that the Blessing surmounted the 6,000 years of providential history and signified an “advance into the realm of liberation.”

October 14, 1994

National Parents’ Day Signed into Law

President Clinton with Parent of the Year honorees in 1995

Parent’s Day was established as a U.S. holiday in 1994 when President Bill Clinton signed a congressional resolution into law (36 U.S.C. § 135) for “recognizing, uplifting and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of children.” The resolution, passed unanimously by the House and Senate, was signed by Speaker of the House Thomas Foley and President pro Tempore of the Senate Robert Byrd. The establishment of Parents’ Day on the fourth Sunday of every July was the result of a bipartisan, multiracial and interfaith coalition of religious, civic and elected leaders who recognized the need to promote responsible parenting in our society and to uplift ideal parental role models, especially for our nation’s children. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss) made the original resolution on July 27, 1993, the day before True Mother delivered her “True Parents and the Completed Testament Age” address on Capitol Hill.

October 14, 2009

Cosmic Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony

The first “Cosmic Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony” was held magnificently at the open space in front of the main building of Sun Moon University in Asan in Korea’s Chungnam province, with True Parents as the officiators on October 14, 2009. Some 25,000 participants gathered as representatives of Korea and the world. For those who could not come there, the ceremony was broadcast simultaneously to 192 nations via satellite and the Internet. The ceremony was unique in that it was the first time that new couples and already established blessed couples received the Blessing together. Previously couples had received the Blessing on the church and worldwide levels. True Father explained that this was the third and final cosmic-level Blessing. The Blessing was also significant as it included large numbers of young Unificationists in a public venue. The participation of attractive young people attracted substantial media coverage that continued in subsequent Blessings.

October 15, 1981

True Father Indicted in America

In 1976, Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue Service commissioner requesting an audit of the Unification Church. Within days, the IRS began what journalist Carlton Sherwood, in his book Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (Regnery Gateway, 1991), termed “the most intensive and expensive criminal tax investigation of any religious figure in U.S. history.” A squad of IRS agents took up permanent offices in the Unification Church’s New York headquarters, while a team of field agents began round-the-clock surveillance of selected church members and their telephones. In 1978, after two years of investigations, the IRS was unable to find anything that compromised the church’s tax exempt status but turned over to the New York District Attorney’s Office “certain anomalies” in Rev. Moon’s tax returns for the years 1973-75.

The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York pursued the matter aggressively despite the unanimous recommendation in writing from attorneys in the Criminal Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Tax Division that prosecution was not advisable. Two grand juries refused to indict True Father. It was highly unusual that a prosecuting attorney would convene a second grand jury once an initial grand jury had determined there was no case. However, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York took the almost unprecedented step of convening a third grand jury to get the necessary indictment on October 15, 1981. True Father was in Korea when the indictment was handed down. There was no extradition treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States, so as long as he was in Korea, he would never have to appear in a U.S. courtroom. Some suggested that prosecutors intentionally announced the indictment when True Father was away, hoping he would not return. Yet, as soon as he heard of the indictment, True Father booked a flight back to America to face the charges and his accusers.

October 15, 2000

True Parents Visit the Marshall Islands

True Parents visited the Marshall Islands at the invitation of the Honorable Kessai H. Note, president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, beginning on October 15, 2000. The president accorded True Parents a state-level welcome. President Note and his wife previously had attended several conferences and events held by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF). In fact, President Note, alone among the Marshall Island candidates for the presidency, attended an International Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., at the very time elections were being held. He found out he had been elected during the conference. Those who had declined the Washington invitation all lost! During their visit, True Father discussed his vision for establishing a school to educate youth from throughout Oceania. True Parents also spent a day fishing with the president. Their visit was a stepping stone toward what later would be declared as the Ocean Providence.

October 16, 2000

The Million Family March

Based on mutual contacts, Unificationists in Chicago had been interacting on a cordial basis with the Nation of Islam (NOI) since 1995. That year Minister Louis Farrakhan attended a FFWPU-sponsored True Family Values Ministry awards banquet. Unificationists reciprocated by attending several NOI events. In 1997, Minister Farrakhan attended “Blessing ’97” at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., where he offered congratulatory remarks and a prayer of blessing on behalf of the Muslim world. In 1998, Minister Farrakhan visited Korea, where he met True Parents and toured church-owned facilities. Later that year, he announced his intention to hold a Million Family March on October 16, 2000, five years to the day after the 1995 Million Man March. Significantly, he asked his directors “to work together with the leadership of the Family Federation.” This met resistance among some within NOI and FFWPU. However, three months prior to the march, True Father invited Minister Farrakhan to his residence, advising him that the event should be non-political, interreligious and interracial. A month prior to the march, True Father expressed hope that it would be “a turning point for racial reconciliation in America.”

The march went off smoothly. Thousands of families crowded the U.S. Capitol plaza and the National Mall, and there were no incidents. Minister Farrakhan preached family, ecumenism and brotherhood, at one point proclaiming, “I am a Christian. I am a Jew. I am a Muslim.” In his keynote address he offered “special recognition and thanks” to True Parents and conducted a Unification-inspired “Blessing” for several dozen international, intercultural and interracial couples immediately afterward. Dr. Chang Shik Yang, FFWPU continental director at the time, reported that FFWPU “mobilized about 2,000 members of the American Clergy Leadership Conference for this event,” including “a number of mainline denominational leaders.”

October 16, 2002

Rally for the Harmony and Unity of Heaven and Earth

On October 16, 2002, the northern Rally for the Harmony and Unity of Heaven and Earth was held for the settlement of Cheon Il Guk at the Guri Training Center, Gyeonggi Province. Around four thousand people, including key members and peace ambassadors, took part in this rally. The southern rally was held on October 20 at Sun Moon University and attracted around twelve thousand people. Through the speech “God’s Homeland and One World,” True Father emphasized, “It is humankind’s mission and responsibility today to find and restore the ideal world God had envisioned in the beginning but that was lost through the Fall.” (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee)

This Week in History briefly lists significant events in the history of the Unification Church, the lives of the Founders, and world events that are momentous to Unificationists. Most items are marked according to the solar calendar. Items marked “H.C.” correspond to the Cheon-gi or Heavenly Calendar, which is based on the lunar calendar. This installment covers the week of October 11 – 17.